Thomas Low
Maltster at Chebacco in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and the immigrant: he came with Rev. Nathaniel Rogers's company, which reached Massachusetts Bay in 1636, and settled at Chebacco in 1643. He was probably the Thomas Lowe who married Margaret Tod at Polstead, Suffolk, in 1630; his widow was Susannah. Father of Thomas Low; he died at Ipswich in 1677.
Life
- c. 1605Bornc. 1605
"Thomas Low, sr., aged about fifty-five years," deposing with his daughter Sarah in 1660 (Essex Quarterly Courts 2:200).
- 1630Married Margaret Tod22 June 1630, Polstead, Suffolk, England
"Thos. Lowe & Margaret Tod married 22 June 1630."
documentedproven - 1677Died8 Sept 1677, Ipswich, Massachusetts
Ipswich VR 2:625. Will proved 6 Nov 1677.
Family
- Parents
- Spouse 1
- Margaret Tod
Wm. G. Low and V. B. Redstone call the identification of the Polstead groom with the Ipswich man "a probability"; the Low master research rates it probable.
compiledprobable2 children
- Spouse 2
- Susannah
Named in his will, which provides for her pay to be sent "to Boston or Charls Towne" if she left his son John; probably the root of Mollie's statement that she died at Charlestown. Merriam has "Susanna Low 19th of August, 1684. Aged about 86," at Watertown.
documentedproven - Children
Pedigree
Notes
Maltster at Chebacco in Ipswich, the immigrant. His inventory lists “the mault hous and the things belonging to it,” and Rev. Thomas Cobbet’s will of about 1685 mentions “Malt at old Goodman Lowe’s malt house” (Hammatt p. 56).
English origin: probable. V. B. Redstone’s searches, printed in Wm. G. Low’s Genealogical Quest No. 2 (1909): “Thos. Lowe & Margaret Tod married 22 June 1630” (Polstead); “Thomas Lowe, son of Thomas & Margaret Lowe bapt. 8 May, 1631” (Groton); “Margaret, daughter of John & Margaret Lowe bap. 17 June 1632” (Boxford, Suffolk, where the rector thought “John” a copying mistake); and “John, son of Thomas & Margaret Lowe bap. 2 Mar. 1633” (Boxford). Thomas, Margaret and John are the three eldest names of the Ipswich family; Polstead is about three miles from Assington, where Rev. Nathaniel Rogers was rector until 1635; Boxford was “the home of the Tod family”; and John Choate of Chebacco, the Lows’ neighbour, was baptized at Groton in 1624.
Arrival. An Ipswich town grant gave him “ten acres of upland at Chebacco, next his ten acres there, in exchange for ten acres due to him by grant unto Mr. Rogers company near the three miles brook by Mr. Appleton’s farme,” so he came in, or as part of, Rev. Nathaniel Rogers’s company, which sailed from Gravesend on 1 June 1636 and reached Massachusetts Bay that November. Winthrop: two ships “full of passengers,” “their beer all spent and leaked out a month before their arrival, so as they were forced to drink water (and that very little) mixed with sack or vinegar.” In 1643 he settled at Chebacco “on land since owned by the late Captain Winthrop Low. His house was about thirty-five rods south of Captain Low’s mansion” (Crowell p. 45).
At Ipswich. In 1647 he and Edward Bragg bought a large pasture from Thomas Firman (Waters 2:721). “Tho. Loe fined for not appearing to serve on the jury,” Sept 1655; juror, March 1656; “Thomas Low deposed that John Fuller’s wife owned some of the hogs,” 1657; and in 1660 he and his daughter Sarah, about 23, said that John Lee had come to their house “with a parcel of hogs and asked if they were theirs and they replied that they were not” (Essex Quarterly Courts 1:398, 414; 2:22, 200). A “Tho. Low,” one of the two Thomases, signed the Ipswich petition of 1666 to clear the colony “from the imputation either of disloyalty to the person, or disaffection to the government of their lawful Prince & Sovereign” (Waters 1:137-139).
His will, 20 April 1677 (“I Thomas Low Sent. of Ipswich in America in the Shire of Essex, being weake in body; but of good & perfect memory”), signed 30 April and proved 6 Nov 1677 (Probate Records of Essex County 3:175-177). His wife Susannah was to have “what goods she brought with hir,” “the vse of that roome which I Lye in,” the cow “which she liketh best,” “one fourth part of her labor that she hath Spunn both Lening & woollen,” and “hir beere as shee hath now, & also free vse of the fire.” His son John had the houses and lands and was executor; son Thomas £30; daughters Margaret and Sarah £40 each; grandchildren Thomas Low, Margaret Davison, Sarah Safford and Sarah Low £5 each. The inventory, £290 16s. 6d., includes the half house and barn, the malt-house, “about fifty boushels of unthrest barly,” and “one Sword, belt, powder, boullets.”
The Geneva Bible. Crowell (1868, pp. 354-355) describes a Geneva Bible of 1579, then owned by Capt. Winthrop Low’s family at Essex, with “‘Susana Low her Book 1677, May 19;’ ‘Thomas Low his Book’ … ‘Samuel Low,’ and ‘John Low’” on its blank leaves; the 1677 inscription dates from the year of Thomas’s death and his widow’s settlement. The family believed it had come over with Capt. John Lowe of the Ambrose (Winthrop Fleet, 1630), which would make him Thomas’s father. Wm. G. Low, who looked hardest, concluded “probably not,” and there is no evidence for it. Nor is any connection shown to the Low name lore Mollie gives (Domesday, a Lord Mayor, Capt. Barnaby Low of the Armada) or to the wolf arms.
His children by the will: Thomas, Margaret (m. Daniel Davison), John (m. 1661 Sarah Thorndike) and Sarah (m. Joseph Safford).
Open questions
- Are the Polstead, Groton and Boxford entries his? NEHGR 174 (2020), Steele, “Descendants of Thomas Low, the Immigrant to Ipswich,” may settle this, Susannah and Margaret Tod.
- His parents. A lead from Mollie (p. 71), quoting Redstone: the will of a widow Firmin of St. Peter’s, Sudbury, “mentions her kinsman Giles Lowe and his children, Thomas, John and Margaret,” and Redstone thought Thomas might have been baptized about 1605 in pages now lost from that register. He bought land from Thomas Firman at Ipswich in 1647; whether the Ipswich Firmins were the Sudbury family is untested.
- The 1579 Geneva Bible: last reported with Capt. Winthrop Low’s family in 1868 (the Essex Historical Society or the Ipswich Museum may know).
Mollie's typescript
Mollie gives the old tradition that the Chebacco Lows descend from Capt. John Low of the Winthrop Fleet, and William G. Low's letter giving it up.
"I tried hard to hold on th Capt. John Low, but, in face of the English records about him, had to give him up. ... We know our Thomas Low (1) was born in 1605."
p. 70 →Mollie says he came over with his son Thomas in the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers's company in 1636, on a voyage so long that the passengers were nearly starved, from Polstead, Suffolk, near Assington.
THOMAS LOW (1) came from England with at least one son, Thomas (2), in the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers company which sailed from Gravesend, Eng. June 1, 1636 and arrived in Nov.
p. 71 →He married Margaret Tod in 1630 and secondly Susannah, and at Chebacco he was a maltster, one of only two allowed to carry on the trade.
Thomas (1) was a good malster, one of two allowed to carry on that trade; He made a "palatable and harmless drink" it is recorded.
p. 72 →Mollie infers his standing at home from his election as Overseer of the Poor for Hadleigh Hamlet in 1635, and tells of John Choate, aged twelve, who came over as his "servant" and may have been his wife's nephew.
Thomas Lowe (1) must have been a man of some prominence in his home valley, since he married Magaret Tod, and was, in the Easter election of 1635, elected Overseer of the Poor for Hadleigh Hamlet
p. 73 →
Checked against the records
- DisprovenThomas Low's second wife Susannah died at Charlestown in 1684
She died on 19 Aug 1684, aged about 86, but at Watertown, as Merriam (1901) gives it. Thomas's 1677 will had her yearly pay sent "to Boston or Charls Towne" if she chose to leave his son John, which is probably where Charlestown came from.
Read it in the book, p. 67 → - UnlikelyThe Lows came with the Conqueror and include a Lord Mayor of London
Name lore with no link to the family. Nothing connects Thomas Low of Chebacco with Domesday Book, a Lord Mayor of London or Capt. Barnaby Low of the Armada ship William, and his own English origin is only probable (Polstead, Suffolk).
Read it in the book, p. 70 → - DisprovenThe Chebacco Lows descend from Capt. John Lowe of the Ambrose
The story came from Capt. Winthrop Low by way of Rev. Robert Crowell. William G. Low, who searched hardest, concluded "probably not" (A Genealogical Quest, 1908), as his letter here shows, and no record links Capt. John to Thomas Low.
Read it in the book, p. 70 → - ProvenThomas Low came in Rev. Nathaniel Rogers's company in 1636
An Ipswich grant gave Thomas Low land in exchange for ten acres "due to him by grant unto Mr. Rogers company." Winthrop wrote of that voyage (17 Nov 1636): beer "all spent," water "mixed with sacke or vinegar," "we had prayed earnestly for them," and one ship "overset ... and lay so half an hour, yet righted of herself."
Read it in the book, p. 71 → - PossibleThomas Low came from Polstead, Suffolk, near Assington
Probable. Polstead has "Thos. Lowe & Margaret Tod married 22 June 1630," followed by sons Thomas (Groton, 1631) and John (Boxford, 1633), the names of the Ipswich family's eldest children. William G. Low and V. B. Redstone called the identification "a probability," and no record yet proves it.
Read it in the book, p. 71 → - PossibleThomas Low may be a son of Giles Lowe of Sudbury
An untested lead. Only Redstone's note reports the Firmin will, and it has not been found or read. A Thomas Firman sold Thomas Low and Edward Bragg a large pasture at Ipswich in 1647 (Waters), which makes a Firmin kinship worth testing.
Read it in the book, p. 71 → - ProvenThomas Low was a maltster at Chebacco
His 1677 inventory lists "the mault hous and the things belonging to it," and Rev. Thomas Cobbet's will mentions "Malt at old Goodman Lowe's malt house." His son Deacon Thomas called himself "Maltster" in his will of 1708. Major Nathan Low of Deer Isle was a tanner (Hosmer).
Read it in the book, p. 72 → - UnlikelyThomas Low's malt drink lost out to cheaper cider
Not a record. The "palatable and harmless" drink, and the malt trade declining because apples made "a more exhilarating as well as cheaper drink," come from Crowell's imagined visit to the malt-house in 1712 (History of Essex, 1868), a temperance lesson. That he was "one of two allowed" to malt has not been checked.
Read it in the book, p. 72 → - PossibleThomas Low brought young John Choate over as his servant
William G. Low (1909) quotes the Choate genealogy: John Choate was "brought over by Mr. Low," and was probably the John baptized at Groton, Suffolk, on 6 June 1624, so about twelve in 1636. The kinship Low suspected, through a sister of Margaret Tod, is his own conjecture and unproven.
Read it in the book, p. 73 → - ProvenThe family's 1579 Geneva Bible bears Susana Low's name, 1677
Crowell's History of Essex (1868) describes both, then owned by Capt. Winthrop Low's family: a 1579 Geneva Bible "Imprinted at London by Christopher Barker," inscribed "Susana Low her Book 1677, May 19," "Thomas Low his Book," "Samuel Low" and "John Low," and a bone-headed cane "Eng'd about 1573." Where they are now is unknown.
Read it in the book, p. 75 → - ProvenSeth Low and Rufus Choate descend from Thomas Low
Seth Low, mayor of New York, descends from Sgt. David Low and Mary Lamb through their son David (Ipswich records; Merriam). Rufus Choate is a kinsman through the Varneys and Proctors (Choate genealogy), and probably descends from Thomas Low too, through his grandmother Ruth Low. Mollie's "Joseph" is not identified.
Read it in the book, p. 86 →
Connections
- Small world